The Trump administration confirmed to a federal judge that the Maryland man mistakenly deported last month is “alive and secure” but remains confined in a notorious El Salvador prison.
The filing by the U.S. State Department, however, did not address the judge’s demands that the administration detail what steps it was taking to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” Michael G. Kozak, a senior State Department official, said in the filing submitted minutes after a 5 p.m. deadline set by the judge. “He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”
Kozak identified himself in the filing as a “Senior Bureau Official” in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
The filing comes one day after a U.S. government attorney struggled in a hearing to provide U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis with any information about Garcia’s whereabouts. Xinis issued an order after Friday’s hearing requiring the administration to disclose Garcia’s “current physical location and custodial status” and “what steps, if any, Defendants have taken (and) will take, and when, to facilitate” his return.
Kozak’s statement did not address the judge’s latter requirements.
Xinis was exasperated Friday with the government’s lack of information.
“Where is he and under whose authority?” the judge asked in the hearing. “I’m not asking for state secrets. All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Trump administration must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release.
Abrego Garcia, who lives in Maryland with his wife and children, was arrested and removed to El Salvador last month after Trump administration officials accused him of having ties to the MS-13 gang. His lawyers said he has no affiliation with MS-13, and has never been charged or convicted of any criminal offenses in the U.S. or El Salvador.
The 29-year-old is being confined at the notorious Salvadoran prison known as CECOT, along with other migrants sent there by the administration as part of an agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Under the deal, the U.S. government is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to hold U.S. detainees.
But Abrego Garica’s case emerged as a flashpoint in President Trump’s immigration crackdown after a U.S. immigration official acknowledged in a court filing that his removal to El Salvador was an “administrative error” and “oversight.”
Jacob Rosen and
contributed to this report.
